It was a case of the status quo being maintained yesterday and nothing really giving ground either way. The bears haven’t been able to make much ground on anyone at all but the bulls haven’t pulled away and made much inroads into the markets either, so it’s a bit of a stalemate we have going here. It’s a bit like an irresistible force meeting an immovable object. Consumer confidence is starting to grow as of now (although it hasn’t really started to swell up to significant levels yet) and on the back of this a bull run was attempted but it all fell a bit flat really. It was a case of a lot of huffing and puffing being done without the house being blown down and trading continued in a tight band within which indices went to and fro.

There were strong volumes posted but nothing that really caught the eye. Even so, it was a trading pattern atypical of this slow-moving and slightly grim trading scenario and this trading could be put down to short covering looking to sell off quickly while in strength as opposed to waiting on bullish accumulation over the course of the day. That is probably why onlookers and analysts might have got the impression that very little was happening as numbers moved very little, but the volume of movement itself was solid.

Gold and retail performed excellently as sectors go while semiconductors and oil fared poorly through the course of the day. It wasn’t comforting to see oil fail to take of since it is a great barometer of consumer confidence and the sign of a rally to come, so its flat lines mean that a real recovery might well not be underway as yet. There are signs that we will continue to test support levels for the market as the days wear on and a large slice of the market players are flagging a bit. Consumer confidence is just looking for something to cling on to by the way of hope, anything at all. And a surfeit of jobs in the market, to take just one example, could well spur on consumer confidence and see the markets rally. Again, that is much easier said than done.

There is a cause and effect everywhere. Talk of Netflix being a part of AppleTV saw its stock soar. Stay invested of course, but remember to keep those stop, buy and hold orders well in place according to your needs. By placing tighter stop losses, you can then raise the cash to pump into something else intraday which you can then flip. Don’t take undue risks in a choppy and volatile market. Selling could be your greatest asset in a market like this, so keep that sell order close at hand. Do your homework, assess your needs, stay informed at all times. Nothing beats having first-hand knowledge and research.